stuff that is relevant

“This constant fear: is it insanity or just ambition?”

2012-01-25T11:12:00.001-10:00

Great theme:

“This constant fear: is it insanity or just ambition?”

- @alaindebotton

From obsessivecompulsive - makes sense

Shirtify: Existing Habits. Existing Habits.

2012-01-23T11:25:00.001-10:00

The equation for great digital creative is pretty simple:

Existing Habit + Existing Desire = Idea

Example: Shirtify.

Listen to music + Connect with favorite artists = Your favorite artists send you t-shirts

Minimal barrier to entry. Simple to understand. Beautiful.

Now just make sure it is tied to your brand. If it has to be.

One Receipt: Photo Budgets

2012-01-23T11:06:00.001-10:00

Here's an example of the power of being able to pull text from images. One Receipt records the information from all your receipts once you snap a photo of them. I wonder why Mint isn't doing this? Maybe they will buy these guys up - or at least I hope they do that rather then just rip off their good idea.

Gif: Panda

2012-01-23T05:49:00.000-10:00

Gif: Panda:

Panda.....(Read...)

Best Moment of the Day: Diaries of Millionaries

2012-01-12T16:03:00.001-10:00

I can't help to think this has been done before, but f it. This is brilliant. And there is no reason this shouldn't be #bestmomentoftheday with a site aggregating the results. Then turn it into a coffee table book. Then turn it into a yacht.

From obsessivecompulsive.

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold: Learning Sales

2012-01-09T06:35:00.000-10:00

I watched The Greatest Movie Ever Sold over the weekend. In the documentary Morgan Spurlock explores advertising through transparently selling out/buying in. A few thoughts on it:

- The irony was too rich when Morgan started talking about how his creative freedom were being limited from working with a client. It is unfortunate he never made the connection between his own internal struggle with the creatives who work in the industry every day. It would have made for a poignant 10 minutes if he sat down with a creative to discuss how to handle these limitations.

- The film is truly successful at being objective, and what makes the film so interesting is whether Morgan is being objective because of his craft demands it or because of all the partnerships and their accompanying contracts.

- The partnership process Morgan takes on is realistic. He first needs to figure out what his "brand" stands for, and then needs to find brands what brands align with his brand. It is funny how we do this all the time and take it for granted that not everyone knows this process.

Because the entire movie is essentially Morgan learning how to market himself and his movie, it is a solid movie worth watching for anyone interested in a behind-the-scenes look at the advertising world.

Best Blogs Posts of 2011: Neil Does Your Homework

2012-01-07T13:11:00.000-10:00

The best marketing/creative/strategy blog posts of 2011. If you read these you can get away with not reading anything for the rest of the year. They are that good.

http://neilperkin.typepad.com/only_dead_fish/2011/12/the-best-blog-posts-of-2011.html

The Myths of the Creative Worker: Evil 5 Second Breaks

2012-01-01T14:28:00.000-10:00

Fast forward to the 25:55 mark of this presentation from Tony Shwartz. There he builds up to provide a startling scientific finding. Every time we go away from the task at hand - check email, Facebook, etc - "we are increasing the amount of time it will take to finish the task by 25%".

Every time.

I'm as guilty as anyone of this. While working I simultaneously open 5 browsers to jump around from one thing to another. I've always regarded it as a creative quirk. One of those characteristics of why I'm in the business of ideas.

But it is bullshit, and I'm much more of a realist than a romantic. The idea of not leaving work burned out is the holy grail I'm going to starting marching towards.

The first step is scheduling breaks rather than taking them at will. Wish me luck.

1x Run: Limited Edition Art

2011-12-29T07:38:00.000-10:00

1x Run offers limited edition art for only a limited time. Similar to Amazon's Gold Box and Groupon, the limited quantities and time frames create excitement out of scarcity. It is also similar to Food Trucks who have used the same tactics to become a popular trend. The takeaway is people want the purchase process to be as unique as the product. The purchase story is starting to be recognized as a part of the product story.

"Out of stock": Aspirational Inventory

2011-12-28T17:10:00.000-10:00

"Out of stock": "Sorry! The lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock" says Banksy.

Art & Copy: It sure does look easy

2011-12-25T19:27:00.001-10:00

"Any creative person is driven to provesomething."

If Art & Copy does one thing well, it is the portrayal of a Creative personality. There is a part of the film where they go right from lauding failure to the brutal assessment that nothing can be learned from failure. On one side Wieden, on the other side George Lois. Pick one.

The inherent conflict of a person who chooses this profession is clear: the work doesn't motivate you. The work will only let you down, as Goodby points out. The motivation has to come from inside you.

Somewhere between the fear of not knowing where the next idea is coming from and the disbelief that you are actually getting paid to do this is an angry, little connoisseur who believes advertising could be better, and should be better.

"We deserve some cynicism because we don't police ourselves."

Maybe because we know it is hard. Or maybe because we know it should be easy.

Skateboard Sculptures

2011-12-19T11:18:00.000-10:00

Skateboard Sculptures:

Japanese artist Haroshi creates unique three-dimensional sculptures out of recycled skateboard decks.

Layers of stacked wooden decks are transformed into sharks, body parts, fire hydrants, toys, fictional characters, and shoes.

Incredible. I need that apple. More pictures on Toxel. Thanks G!

The Shopper Playbook

2011-12-14T12:25:00.003-10:00

Canada Tweets its War Dead: Discrupting Feeds

2011-11-30T15:09:00.000-10:00

From Osocio Weblog:

Canada Tweets its war dead:

The Ottawa Citizen has taken an interesting approach to memorializing Canada’s war dead. Perhaps taking a cue from Israel’s tradition of annually naming all the people killed by Palestinian terror attacks, The Citizen has created a Twitter feed called ”We Are The Dead”

The Citizen’s Glen McGregor set up a bot that accesses the Canadian Government’s Virtual War Memorial, which houses 119,531 records of Canadians killed at war (mostly in the 20th century). Once an hour, it randomly accesses a name, rank, posting and date of death and uploads it to Twitter.

“A quick calculation showed us that it will take more than 13 years for the bot to work through the list of war dead. We decided it was worth doing anyway,” says McGregor in his blog.

“We are the dead” is a line from the WWI poem ”In Flanders Fields” by Canadian physician and Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae”

Here is the stanza:

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Author: Tom Megginson

Revenues and responsibility: Purpose Branding

2011-11-30T15:05:00.000-10:00

From Influx Insights:

Revenues and responsibility:

Corporations are trying to work out their role in the world beyond revenues and profits.

It’s a story that’s been repeating itself for the last few decades with corporations flirting with corporate social responsibility.

In a world focused on short-term revenues and driving shareholder value, many companies have put CSR on the back-burner, but that looks set to change.

It looks there’s a re-emerging new school of thought that is about delivering revenues and responsibility- we see it with Coca-Cola, Unilever and others.

Here Pepsi’s CEO, Indra Nooyi explains in a Fortune interview how the company has gone one step beyond CSR to the new world of Performance with Purpose.

This new perspective seems to be happening right now for two reasons.

1. Global corporations are looking to source even more business from the developing world and it therefore pays to be a good citizen

2. This is a response to the backlash to big business and CEO’s as companies make a concerted effort to take a more human approach (consumers are demanding more accountability)

It will be interesting to see if this trend trickles down to mid-size and domestic companies, or remains something that only the enlightened global corporation engages in.

Marvin Gaye Illustration by Charles Williams

2011-11-30T12:42:00.000-10:00

Marvin Gaye Illustration by Charles Williams:

More here.

//

A Complete Idiot's Guide to 2012: My Self-Improvement Reading

2011-11-29T16:09:00.001-10:00

A few weeks back I had an idea while in the shower. It may have been the cleaning that made me think I should do some actual improving. Subjects like wine, proper grammar and buying a home weren't going to magically pop into my head like I was taking some kind of Limitless pill. And really how long could I keep pretending that House Hunters and Property Ladder were going to help me eventually buy a home.

The quick, usual doubt came in: I'm just too lazy. Not actually lazy, but I'm busy with a good job and trying to launch a business (check us out at UnionSt.us). Amongst the suds, I realized I needed a simple, idiot's guide (see what I did there?) to these subjects if I was ever going to get around to them. The idea formulated: every month in the new year I would read a different Complete Idiot's Guide. I investigated the cost and decided I was too cheap. Working in digital (and hence social) I figured I would give the old ask-for-something-free-through-twitter approach.

And lucky for me,

They contacted me after my tweet and offered to give me any 12 titles I wanted as long as I blog about the title after each month. A fair exchange, and I'm very grateful for their generosity.

The titles I chose:

Complete Idiots Guide to....

The Psychology of Happiness

Starting a Business

Total Nutrition

Public Speaking

Positive Dog Training

Writing Well

Spices & Herbs

Motivational Leadership

Wine Basics

Meditation

Buying a Home

Grilling

I'm sure I'll touch on more of why I chose them as I begin reading, but for now my plan is to approach each book, and blog post, through a content and marketing lens. Content being the subject matter itself, and then how the subject matter can be applied to marketing. I'm excited to begin the process in January. Hope you follow, and thanks again to the good people over at Complete Idiot's Guide.

Mr Button by John Caswell Design - adds a little character to an...

2011-11-09T08:09:00.000-10:00

Mr Button by John Caswell Design - adds a little character to an...:

Mr Button by John Caswell Design - adds a little character to an object that often goes unnoticed

beard slap

2011-11-09T08:06:00.000-10:00

beard slap:

'Two-Pizza' Teams: Interesting Look into Amazon

2011-11-06T12:25:00.000-10:00

From Only Dead Fish:

'Two-Pizza' Teams:

Werner Vogels: Amazon and the Lean Cloud from HackFwd on Vimeo.

“Amazon is a technology company. We just happen to do retail”

So much insight in this fascinating talk from Werner Vogels, Amazon CTO, at the recent HackFwd event in Berlin. Werner essentially tells the story of how Amazon Web Services (their cloud infrastructure offering) came about but in doing so makes the point that many of the principles talked about around Lean Start-Up are ones that remain central to the way in which Amazon operates.

Scaling quickly had always been the key priority for Amazon, more of a priority than maintaining a coherent architecture, which led them to developing services based around APIs rather than direct database access. This in turn leant itself nicely to an organisational structure focused around small teams typically comprised of 8-10 people ('Two-Pizza' teams - the number of people who can be fed easily with two large pizzas). There are currently around 800 such teams in the business behind 800 different services which go to comprise the wider Amazon offering (calling the home page requires about 200-300 such services to construct the page for you). Teams of 8-10 people are able to stay in touch with what each of them are doing, whereas meetings would be required to do this for larger teams.

This decentralised structure has several major benefits. It is a structure that is built for speed. They can bring a new service or product to market in 10-15 days. But it also means that they inherently design for flexibility, for on-demand and, where appropriate, for automation. Processes are distilled into their simplest form because they have to be. It means that they can enable a culture of continuous innovation ("Amazon Web Services looks like a collection of 15 or 20 or 40 startups") and a relentless customer focus (benefits from additional scale are passed on to customers, innovation is focused on the things that don't change, those that will always be important to people). Amazon Web Services launches a continous stream of new products, each with minimal features sets. More features are launched only through close co-operation with cutomers.

At the recent Google Firestarters event, Mel Exon talked about how the new agency OS might be characterised by small, nimble, networked, task-based teams (as Nigel Bogle had put it "Big is a collection of smalls"). Despite building a huge business, Amazon have been able to retain the flexibility and adaptability of a start-up. In a world increasingly characterised by the need to respond to and design for on-demand, there's a lesson in that for all of us.

Google Reader's Moronic Move to Delete Shared Items

2011-11-01T06:00:00.003-09:00

A day later and I'm still dumfounded by Google's idiotic removal of shared items from Google Reader. I have been a patron of Google Reader for years: keeping thousands of blog feeds, and sharing anything and everything I think might be useful to me in the future. Reader's ability to search the shared items made it easy to find curated information on any topic I was working on, and I showed off its functionality to students, co-workers and everyone else.

More so, I have been a Google guy for awhile: gmail, google docs, tried buzz, trying +, tried android and, heck, I even built a crappy site using Google sites. Looking back at that list, I'm starting to wonder why I'm such a big supporter of them.

Google Reader's move isn't just a dumb upgrade move, it is a dumb marketing move. The best way to grow a brand is to support your core advocates so they spread your brand through word of mouth. Unsexy as it is, word of mouth is king and will always be king for a brand.

Back to the current problem, Google allows you to export your shared items through a json file. What is a json file? I don't know. Should I? Maybe. Should an everyday user? Hell no. I'm left hoping for someone more tech savvy than me to come up with a solution, and that I'll find the solution by Googling.

There in lies the point. I will never stop using Google as a search engine because it is simply better, and Google has confused that with brand love. It is not. Usage does not equal advocacy. Bank of America can tell you that. Shell can tell you that. Company Google does not want.

In the meantime, I've found a link that allows you to access your shared items so I will manually go through to star each one of the thousands of shared items. Star'ng isn't a solution though because I don't know what would stop Google from removing that some day. It may be time to switch to Evernote.

If you are in the same boat, there is a petition going around. Here's the link, or you can Google it...

Wu Wear is Forever

2011-10-26T13:11:00.000-09:00

Too fresh from freshness.

The Culture of Luxury: 4 Ways to Define

2011-10-25T11:29:00.000-09:00

Tim Stock's presentation on luxury:

The Culture of Luxury 2011 (Brand Packaging)

View more presentations from Tim Stock

Speaking Through Pictures #97

2011-10-25T11:13:00.000-09:00

Speaking Through Pictures #97:

via s3.amazonaws.com

Playlist Cards: The Possibilities of Free Music

2011-10-25T10:00:00.000-09:00

From Brand Flakes for Breakfast:

"Remember the painstaking care you took to create mix tapes back in the day? From the song selection, to the timing, to the name of the tape - it all had to be just right. Then you'd give it to your friends or that special someone and let them revel in your musical mastery.

While those days may be gone (tear), there is a new line of greeting cards with QR codes, created by Stupid, that let you give digital mix tapes from Spotify to others. It's not quite the same, but a fun way of sharing music."
Playlist Cards from Stupid on Vimeo.

Post-It Note Watch

2011-10-24T12:25:00.000-09:00

Post-It Note Watch:

These Post-It Note Watches made me smile.

(via TheFancy)

Julian Bialowas: Woodsy Quotes

2011-10-23T09:00:00.000-09:00

Everyday for a year Julian Bialowas paired an inspirational quote with this photography.

From Design Crush:

Play Spent: Gaming Reality

2011-10-18T06:00:00.000-09:00

Play Spent: a game where you try and make it through a month as a low income American. Besides the clean experience, there is an interesting integration of Facebook to ask your friends to help out. It drives home the reality that you would actually have to ask friends for help if you were in the situation, and it is a built-in way to socially spread the game. Pretty cool, and slightly depressing.

http://playspent.org/

Ariel Fashion Shoot: Food Fight Without The Mess

2011-09-08T09:56:00.003-09:00

A nice digital to physical experience. Reminds me of Shoot the Banker for obvious reasons.

From The Hidden Persuader

Brands Can Learn From Food Trucks: The Thrill of the Chase

2011-08-31T06:38:00.000-09:00

"What can we learn from the food truck? What are the cultural trends and trajectories in evidence here? Consumers are telling us that they prize drama over utility, scarcity over ubiquity, novelty over the guaranteed sameness of the national brand. They want brands that are porous to the world, that integrate with the world. They are prepared to embrace brands that take a little more effort, especially if that effort rewards them with something that is exciting and rare.

Yes, consumers are willful and contrary. But in the process they are signaling us that the old rules of innovation, marketing, and retail (keep it simple, make it cheerful and unmysterious, lay it on everywhere, and lead with the functional benefit) are now in shambles. The world is changing."

From obsessivecompulsive.

Side Assist Office: Driving Utility Meets Office Utility

2011-08-30T13:54:00.001-09:00

VW's Side Assist technology protects you on the road from people driving into your blind spot, so to market the new technology they have created a funny, useful and relevant webcam-based website. The site makes sure no once creeps up on you when your browsing the internet at work. Whenever someone walks into the view of their webcam, a bunch of fake productive websites pop up. It is brilliant. Talk about creating value for your customers.

Check it out here: http://side-assist-office.com/

Blink 182 Music Video: It Ain't Illegal

2011-08-17T15:00:00.000-09:00

Blink 182 wanted to release its new single by giving back to their fans. Instead of searching YouTube to remove any illegal use of their music (like most evil music companies), they searched to mash those videos into their new video.

From obsessivecompulsive.

El Bulli: Next Level Food

2011-08-11T08:44:00.000-09:00

This is going to be good:

From one plus infinity

A Culture of Likes: Pandering Kills Creativity

2011-08-04T09:49:00.000-09:00

From a recent WSJ article:

"Because it's so easy to medicate our need for self-worth by pandering to win followers, "likes" and view counts, social media have become the métier of choice for many people who might otherwise channel that energy into books, music or art—or even into their own Web ventures...

So let's rise up against the tyranny of the "like" button. Share what makes you different from everyone else, not what makes you exactly the same. Write about what's important to you, not what you think everyone else wants to hear. Form your own opinions of something you're reading, rather than looking at the feedback for cues about what to think. And, unless you truly believe that microblogging is your art form, don't waste your time in pursuit of a quick fix of self-esteem and start focusing on your true passions."

Via The Hidden Persuader

Toyota Augmented Reality Riding: Passenger Seat Fingerprints

2011-08-04T09:41:00.000-09:00

This is bananas is the truest sense of the word. Below is a demo video of what an augmented reality car window could be. Bananas. From Augmented Times:

F Process: Agile Planning

2011-08-03T06:53:00.000-09:00

I started in planning with a dedication to the creative output. I had a feeling there would be overwhelming strategic processes and mumbojumbo, and boy was there ever. For better or worse, I've continued to question the real value in standardized strategy processes. Luckily there are other people who join me in this minority opinion. Check out this video of John Jay in a recent Neil Perkin post:

And this diesel presentation from Neil as well.

Agile planning

View more presentations from Neil Perkin

What up whale?: Simple Designs

2011-08-03T06:46:00.000-09:00

Love the simplicity of these two designs.

From here

and here

Slowing Down The Stream: Organizing the Chatter

2011-07-27T07:37:00.000-09:00

The futility of all our conversations (posts to tweets) and content (blogs to bookmarking) fleetingly fading away into nothing has always been the elephant in the subconscious of all of us. It is the source of all those lame social media jokes about wasting time on the internet. It is a reason why I've been a huge proponent of Google Reader because it makes it easy to store and search past bookmarks. In the post below, it looks like there are going be more tools that make sense of the clutter. It is time we moved beyond twitter data visualization and create some utility out of the frenzy of daily social activity. Exciting stuff.

From BigSpaceShip and originally from Edward Boches:

The stream moves beyond the moment

I don’t know about you, but I miss 90 percent of what flows through my social networks. Going back and filtering or discovering stuff that might be genuinely meaningful is hard right now. I can save a tweet, or throw a link into Trunkly, but what if next month I want to search what the 10 top creative directors have shared as links over the past month? What if I want to know what new books have been liked more times by my trusted Facebook or Google + friends?

These capabilities are coming. New platforms like Postpo.st, while still buggy, could make Twitter a far more valuable resource. I know one company in particular that will soon turn Facebook likes into real social currency. When that happens, we will all have more reasons to encourage social response to our products and content.

Wondering what the value of a “Like” is now? Imagine what happens when it becomes a searchable source of recommendations. Don’t think it matters what someone says about you on Twitter a day or two later? Think again. For marketers it means sharpening your engagement and content strategy with an understanding of the long term value of a Like or a +1 along with learning to earn rather than buy them, ideally from people whose influence is meaningful.

Dave White's Eagle: America F Yea!

2011-07-26T17:45:00.000-09:00

Too fresh. From Josh Spear

LPCover Lover | Feel the burn

2011-06-29T10:40:00.000-09:00

LPCover Lover | Feel the burn

Kid Play: Blood Is Thicker Than Water

2011-06-18T14:08:00.000-09:00

Amazing. Check out this video that pulls a Tarantino meets Super Soakers. No wonder my mom used to cut off the guns from my plastic army men.

From oneplusinfinity.

Free Ideas: Platforms, Not Print Ads

2011-06-18T13:59:00.000-09:00

Here's a better quote than "good ideas help people connect with eachother":

"There a common theme to the greatest innovations in American history. And that is that these were the things that helped people or goods or ideas travel about more freely."

James Meigs

Editor-in-Chief

Popular Mechanics

From Maschmeyer

Wahwah.fm: The Last DJ

2011-06-17T11:36:00.000-09:00

This is a great app that allows you to broadcast what you are listening to. Essentially, it makes you a radio DJ without changing any existing behaviors. Smart. Really smart. Check out the link below from Only Dead Fish.

wahwah.fm – the music around you from wahwah.fm on Vimeo.

Wahwah.fm - Only Dead Fish

Youtube Music Machine: Just Look In Front of You

2011-06-14T16:09:00.001-09:00

These things always amaze me. We spend so much time being creative within platforms and developing them, but we don't realize there are original things we can do within them without creating anything new.

As adverblog explains,

"There’s a new way to be creative with a Youtube. Just hit the numbers from 1 to 9 while you’re watching a video and see what happens…

Actually the functionality has been there forever (or maybe less, I don’t know but only recently someone has thought about using the keyboard numbers to remix a Youtube video."

Youtube interactive music machine | Adverblog

Maschmeyer & Beckstrom's Law: Why you can have too many friends

2011-06-10T05:26:00.000-09:00

Good read exploring how networks are about transactions (all the things your friends do) rather than your number of friends.

Maschmeyer: Beckstrom's Law: Measuring your network's value

Bonnie and Clyde Poster: Cash Rules Everything Around Me

2011-06-07T12:09:00.000-09:00

So sick. Recreating the final scene while getting across why the scene is happening. From: [BB-Blog]: Jason Munn.

Sitting Is Killing You: Start Typing While Standing

2011-06-01T14:18:00.000-09:00

Scary infographic. I should have been a furniture refinisher like my father. From brand flakes:

Jellio: FUN...By Design

2011-06-01T07:05:00.000-09:00

Really cool ice cream bench by this design shop called Jellio. Lots of other interesting things as well.

Gummy Bearskin Rug

2011-06-01T06:41:00.000-09:00

Gummy Bearskin Rug.

The Planner Survey: DO IT!

2011-05-26T04:31:00.000-09:00

The Planner Survey is out and needs more people to fill it out. Here is Heather's call to action:

Hello Planners and Strategists-   

You may have taken the survey, but if you haven't would you please do so? And help spread the word? I'm hoping for a big turn out this year - we're at 1,800 completes at the moment. Here's the link: http://sgiz.mobi/s3/The-Planner-Survey-2011

According to a post by Farrah Bostic last week, here's why you should participate:   

"Greater transparency into salaries by position, experience, region, size of agency, etc. help us better negotiate for our salaries. It helps us figure out what the high and low ends are and therefore gives us leverage: we know what the agencies are willing to pay, and we can start the salary discussion from a better educated, and therefore more advantageous position. TRUE TESTIMONIAL: I used the survey to negotiate my last salary – it worked, and it worked to my advantage. I wouldn’t have had the guts to ask for that salary otherwise.   

It also helps us see where the discrepancies are – do men and women make the same amount? Are more senior planners at smaller agencies under-valued compared to their colleagues at big agencies, or vice versa? What do we gain or give up in making the choice to take certain roles, in certain cities, at certain agencies?   

Sunshine, as they say, is the best disinfectant. The more we know about how much and how hard we work, how we’re paid, what our benefits are like, where the opportunities for career growth are, and so on, the brighter the light shines on agency practices, and hopefully encourages them to behave better."   

I appreciate you taking the time to fill in the survey. And if you ever need anything from me, you know how to reach me.   

All the best,  
Heather

Facebook Summed Up: Drop the Mic

2011-05-09T12:03:00.000-09:00

Over at Adspace Pioneers there's a brief post about the future of social networking. It makes some nice points but the real gem is in the comments by Max Think. Check him out summarizing it up:

I also think that all the retarded comments that come up on the "wall" are driving people to question why they are wasting their time looking at what people they don't like think about royal weddings and dead terrorists.

So many photo albums are private that no one can perv anymore and the kids who made facebook fun no longer get wasted and post pictures because they are online friends with their mums and bosses.

I wont leave facebook because I might need to sleep on that distant mates couch in sweden in 2 years time, and I will also post an obnoxious picture when i'm at disneyland to make my friends jealous, but other then that its dead and wasting hours of peoples lives.

Drop the mic.

Levi's Film Workshop: UGC Value Exchange

2011-05-09T11:40:00.000-09:00

Brand Flakes for Breakfast has a nice post about Levi's Film Workshop. The key for me is the value exchange: access to the latest film equipment for whatever content they produce. It is a win-win situation where the value provided (equipment) is used to create the value for the brand (content). A little more effective than giving away $50,000 to the winning YouTube video about Tampax.

maharam x Nike Zoom Tennis Classic: South Beach to Hamptons

2011-04-29T10:12:00.001-09:00

Sick. From freshness:

2011-04-29T06:33:00.003-09:00

Love these by Alexandre Farto.

The reality beneath the surface.

It looks like it is coming out of the wall but created by taking off the wall. Trippy.

From bblong.

Think Like A Child: Swiss Miss Helps

2011-04-28T12:52:00.005-09:00

It is interesting how much we use the word "creativity" but not "imagination" in our industry. I'm guessing "imagination" has a connotation invoking Disney and childish, immature behavior while we - including myself - tend to take ourselves too seriously. But swiss miss reposted a very insightful quote:

The creative adult is the child who survived. - U. LeGuin

Not just child-like imagination, but also shameless, uninhibited curiosity. Do you think a child or an adult would be more likely to say the following? (Also swiss miss)

The value is when you don't care what something is, or how it works, you create possibilities. (Yes, below is swiss miss)

What's the moral? Thinking like a kid is a strength, and swiss miss is very good at reminding me of that.

Doortop Stash: Nifty Hiding

2011-04-07T10:46:00.000-09:00

Not all that realistic but would be great for a movie scene.

Doortop Stash: "

"What does the top edge of say, your utility closet door look like? I'm betting that you've nev..(Read...)

Kwoon - I Lived on the Moon

2011-04-07T10:36:00.000-09:00

From oneplusinfinity:

Kwoon - I Lived on the Moon from Melomano Blog on Vimeo.

One Minute Puberty: Black & White Flashbacks

2011-03-30T05:46:00.002-09:00

This about sums it up. From bnox:

One Minute Puberty from bitteschön.tv on Vimeo.

Supermarket Dating Site: Where Green Giants Meet Sara Lees

2011-03-28T11:58:00.005-09:00

I'm still getting the jokes out of my system, and the memories of the episode where the Fonz teaches Richie how to pick up chicks at the supermarket, but this is a really smart idea.

There are million sayings dropped daily on the Food Network about cooking food with love. But beyond the sentimentality, food is a universal conversation point between people. Meet anyone in the world and you can have a conversation about food. Not to mention how food is reflective of overall personality and beliefs - whether buying organic, Jimmy Dean sausages or sushi rice. It only makes sense then that a grocery store will get into the dating scene.

"Inspired by the findings, the supermarket has paired with dating site UKDating.com to create ASDA Dating, which matches singles based on their food preferences. Users of the site can fill out questionnaires on their favorite foods and then view other singles who answered similarly."

Check out more at springwise

Reebok Classic Leather Clean Ultralite Pack: Awesome

2011-03-27T06:23:00.002-09:00

I need to get these. Only $65 bucks too. More at freshness:

When Wrong is Right: The Dark Planners

2011-03-25T11:23:00.002-09:00

No comment...

"5. Insert a glaring mistake into everything All creatives ignore the brief if it's perfect. Why? They want to have thought of everything themselves. So insert one or two fatal flaws, let them correct you and they'll work from the brief with the gusto of Charlie Sheen in a buy one get one free brothel. Client's are no different, they want to think they've made the big strategic breakthrough. So make sure you present something crushingly, obviously wrong and let them correct you. They'll naturally assume they've saved the day and rewritten the marketing paradigm and sign off the strategy with said Charlie Sheen enthusiasm. In other words, don't waste valueable time and energy crafting perfection, take the easy route with craft imperfection."

From Northern Planner

Bookcase Blocks: Classy Playset

2011-02-24T15:33:00.004-10:00

This is awesome. The combination of form and function with plenty of room for creativity. You could have a unique design on the backside based on how you placed your books in the front site.

From Like Cool:

Negative Space: Negative Air Billboard

2011-02-21T06:32:00.004-10:00

Amazing. The space usually occupied by an obstructive billboard frames the clear sky with obstructive "dirty air".

From osocio:

Tip Jar: Rap Battle

2011-02-21T06:24:00.003-10:00

Want more tips? Make it a poll. Really strong simple insight when thinking about touchpoints.

From obsessivecompulsive:

Interactive Bus Shelter Games

2011-01-30T11:41:00.000-10:00

From obssessivecompulsive:

bus-shelter games start city rivalry
Yahoo!’s Bus Stop...: "

bus-shelter games start city rivalry

Yahoo!’s Bus Stop Derby Campaign: Interactive social games on the walls of bus shelters pit SF neighborhoods against each other; the neighborhood that wins gets a free concert from OK Go

Video Games vs Real Life

2011-01-29T13:15:00.000-10:00

From obsessivecompulsive:

“Video Games vs. Real Life” is a clever imagery series by Alex...: "

“Video Games vs. Real Life” is a clever imagery series by Alex Lewis (a.k.a. fatheed; a t-shirt designer famously known at Threadless).

Links of the Week

2011-01-24T06:21:00.002-10:00

How do colors affect purchases?

Social Media influence purchase decisions (Stats)

The rise of the Digital Cypher

Check In, Chat & Snag Tunes With MTV’s “Skins” Captionbomb

Spanair and the unexpected luggage

Just another reason The Wire is amazing..

2011-01-14T10:02:00.001-10:00

Asked why he was teaching a class around a TV drama, Wilson said the show makes the concerns of sociologists immediate in a way no work of sociology he knows of ever has. "Although The Wire is fiction, not a documentary, its depiction of [the] systemic urban inequality that constrains the lives of the urban poor is more poignant and compelling [than] that of any published study, including my own," he wrote in an e-mail.

http://www.slate.com/id/2245788/?from=rss

Images With No Theme

2011-01-07T11:47:00.007-10:00

From Likecool:

From Swissmiss:

From Likecool:

From LP Cover Lover:

From The Third Place:

The Slowdown App: Music Getting You Too Hyped?

2011-01-07T06:53:00.003-10:00

Brilliant insight about how music can affect your driving. The app slows down your music if you are going over the speed limit and stops completely if you are going way too fast. Check it out here at Obsessive Compulsive.

Condoms Cost Less Than Kids: The Simpliest Insights Are The Best

2011-01-03T06:17:00.002-10:00

Awesome campaign.

From Kiss My Black Ads,

"If Don Draper were walking among us, we're betting he'd count this as a pretty clever sell: Sir Richard's, a new condom startup, is advertising its wares not by promises of hair-pulling, nail-scratching pleasure, but rather economics. Simply put, it costs so much to have a damn kid that you better not have one by accident."

My Favorite Posts of 2010

2010-12-31T09:01:00.004-10:00

I saw someone else do this and thought it was a good idea to keep track of those old posts buried in the internet.

1. The Joys of Yahoo! Answers - Still cracks me up. Shows how social media can help no matter how small or random the ask.

2. The Purpose of Research by Tim Stock - Tim makes insightful presentations time and time again. I highly recommend checking out his Twitter and Slideshare.

3. I'm Remembering!: The Coolest Site Ever - I'm a sucker for 90s nostalgia. Throw some Nickelodeon Gak and some Muppet McDonalds Toys and I'm there all day.

4. I Don't Like To Dream About Getting Paid - I want this.

5. Two Views On Digital - The Nothern Planner's insightful take on digital. Including David Mortimer quote, "I'm beginning to think a good digital campaign is a bit like writing a brief. You produce something that inspires them to play."

6. Eat Green Be Healthy - I still need to print this out.

7. The Perfect Planning Keyboard

8. Kissssses - I had a blog post attached to this but when you compose a blog post in google reader it causes the heading to link out to the starting blog. My one gripe with reader which is otherwise awesome. Anyways, the post talked about how comedy is about setting expectations and then dramatically under delivering on them.

9. PUNcutation - Same thing. I had a blog post but I know it wasn't as well written as Faris's post anyways. Such a great comment on what is the foundation of so much advertising: double meanings, puns, play on words, etc as slogans and taglines.

10. The Fresh Threads of Bel Air - What can I say? I kicked this tumblr blog off almost a year ago and never really took off. Not to make excuses but my home computer crashed where I had at least 50 more photos to upload. Nonetheless, I kind of quit on it, but still glad I made it. You never know what you'll make that someone will use to make something themselves. I guess I was just contributing assets to the internet. Anyways, he wore some wild stuff.

Faceless Watch by Qian Yiran: Less Is More

2010-12-30T18:45:00.002-10:00

They could sell little tan making stencils to fit in the middle, but that would be lame.

Hate Can Bring Us Together: But Not for Good

2010-12-27T14:57:00.000-10:00

Makes a lot of sense. Especially in light of current extremist nature of American politics, and not to mention that group that quickly rose to power in Germany after WWI. From Brand Flakes for Breakfast:

we hate you...: "... ok, not really, but according to a new study done by Slovenian and British researchers, negative threads on the internet receive a LOT more interaction than positive ones. They proved it, scientifically even. The irony, however, is that all this hate actually fosters a strong sense of togetherness, causing people to bond over their mutual disgust:

'There is evidence that group cohesiveness may be related to negative feelings about others,' agrees Tom Buchanan, a psychologist at the University of Westminster in London. 'Members of an online community might unite around a perceived attack on them or some aspect of their identity.'

With the exception of double rainbows and puppies (who doesn't love these things?!), this theory seems to hold up. But, no matter how much hate sells, we'll always be purveyors of all things awesome! Long live the unicorn.

Creative Happy Place: Planners Need to Bare their Souls

2010-12-27T14:30:00.005-10:00

I'm clicking my way through Ed Cotten's recap deck from "meet the makers". The event was held in New York earlier in the month showcasing various "makers".

One particular point I've heard before but it is important to restate for planners:

"Making something is making a statement about who you are - artists constantly put themselves on the line"

More often than not, planners are the only people, besides the creatives themselves, who realize how personal coming up ideas are. Too often account folks and clients think creatives are simply machines churning out work when in reality they are opening themselves up in ways they could never sympathize with.

This is also important for planners who want to join in concepting. We all know "every idea has value" while brainstorming, but still too often negativity finds its way into concepting. Planners shouldn't be concerned with proving themselves with great ideas when they are invited to concept. They should be concerned with keeping the vibe positive, and creating an environment where it is ok for creatives to bear their souls.

Belated Christmas Gift for Ad People: Angry Bird Plush Toys

2010-12-27T14:21:00.002-10:00

Angry Birds continues its world domination. Now available in plush toys.

Same Idea But Different: Wal-Mart & Target

2010-12-19T13:15:00.005-10:00

You can really tell the difference between the two competing brands by how they execute the same idea: Christmas day is awesome.

and

(couldn't find the version with the cheesy jingle but its what you would expect)

By the way, I don't like the strategy behind either of these. It is essentially saying buying will make you happy. Welcome to The Recovery Economy.

8-Bit Video Games are the Future: Augmented Reality

2010-12-18T16:04:00.004-10:00

A recent post on Augmented Times has some really cool Super Mario Brothers games utilizing augmented reality. The realization is 8-bit games - classic NES for example - are perfect for augmented reality in the physical world. Check out how the below examples use "boxes" in the real world like window frames and taped up paper. There is real potential in combining the techie love for these games with the techie love for augmented reality. Not to mention the universal familiarity with how to play these games being the foundation for learning how to use augmented reality.

Here's one using projection technology:

Also check this out:

super mario through an augmented world (TEST) from espadaysantacruz studio on Vimeo.

And a little off the point but very cool:

It is just a concept but look how awesome it would be.

Presentation Advice from David Armano

2010-12-18T15:56:00.002-10:00

This is interesting advice from a recent interview with David Armano about how he presents:

"RU: How do you recover from losing your "flow"--when you're in the middle of a presentation?

DA: Great question, this happens from time to time. Not everyone notices it—but I know when I’ve lost optimal flow. What I do is look to the audience and find someone who is highly engaged. I focus on that person even though they probably never know it. I take that energy and bring it back into the presentation. This usually works and I regain my footing. I often find that I’m only as good as my audience. But I’ve been pretty fortunate to have some good ones."

What do you do?: Planner Identity Crisis

2010-12-15T11:17:00.006-10:00

From a recent Faris post,

"A planner's role is to understand & empathize with human responses to stimulus, not get dragged into the nightmarish mechanistic false world of purchase intent methodologies" - Stephen King

The million dollar question we get asked as planners is what do you do? We get it from our moms and from our account folks. And we never really have a clear answer. Recently, I've been going with, "My job is to make the creatives' lives easier". I like it because its short, but it may be a little to short, and it hides behind the creative work a little.

I also enjoy the line: "A planner's job is to make sure the work works". Still, its a little vague.

I recently read Ed Cotten that planners are going through an identity crisis as we try to specialize in everything from mobile technology to social strategy to behavioral economics. It is a fair comment. After all we need to be fluent in everything and, for the most part, we don't like being boxed in as the "consumer insight" person. We have nothing to lean on.

Unfortunately, I don't have the solution. Sorry.

But I do feel like the first quote gets at the core of what we do as planners: understand human responses.

If I had to pitch my one line it would be this: "Keep the outcome human".

I'll be the first to agree it is fluffy, but there is a truth in modern advertising that there are more invested parties than ever: technology, account, creative, media, client, etc.

The only agenda a planner should have is making sure the work is pertinent to how people will actually engage with it.

Who knows? To be honest, I just made it up.

Etsy Recommendation Engine: Why aren't there more?

2010-12-14T08:56:00.001-10:00

Etsy has launched a product recommendation engine using Facebook Connect to help you find gifts for your friends. It is pretty simple but useful.

I’m surprised recommendation engines like this aren’t standard on every e-commerce site at this point. They could be applied to content portals as well to serve up the most relevant content based on your FB profile and activity. Has anyone seen a recommendation engine that uses sources besides FB and Twitter? It would be amazing if you could use your browsing history as a source.

Save As WWF, Save A Tree: Forget PDF

2010-12-14T08:15:00.003-10:00

WWF Germany has created a .wwf file format which is a .pdf that cannot be printed. This is a great example of creating a product (assuming it works) and not another message. It also gets to the heart of an insight of casually printing documents without any regard to the environment.

Play the Future: Gamepocolypse - a list

2010-11-24T06:51:00.000-10:00

From Maschmeyer:

Gamepocolypse - a list: "1. the literal gamification of Manhattan with 2004’s PacManhattan to integral games such asFoursquare

2. EpicWin is both a to-do list and a role playing game

3. Urban Signals uses geo-location to introduce local singles to one another in real time, in the real world

4. Healthmonth empowers players to create their own health-related rules and challenges each month and then places them on teams with likeminded individuals.

5. Quest to Learn is a new model of school built with the underlying design principals of games in mind. At Q2L, kids learn, explore and interact with real world problems through less real world environments (e.g., lessons on “enemy movement” learned via a community of spiky-headed robots roving inside a computer game).

6. World Without Oil – “play it before you live it” - is a massive multiplayer online game which lets users create an alternate reality using digital media to see how their lives and the world around them would be affected by an oil shortage. The result is a crowdsourced story that is close enough to the truth to get people to care and talk about preventing such a crisis from coming to fruition.

7. Hawaii 2050 is Hawaii’s sustainability plan for the next 40 years, based on what its citizens want for the future of their economy, society and environment. To get the conversation started in 2006, hundreds of delegates were immersed in four diverse scenarios, representing possible futures for the state. These included a high-growth world, a limited-growth outcome, a collapse scenario and even a near-Singularity possibility.

Morgan Stanley: 10 Questions for Internet Executives

2010-11-23T15:27:00.000-10:00

10 Questions Internet Executives

View more presentations from Perfect Market.

Charity Transparency: Site Facilitates Donations to Homeless Shelters

2010-11-19T06:52:00.000-10:00

Talk about transparency. All charities should run like this. From Springwise:

Site facilitates donations to homeless shelters by letting consumers shop for a shelter: "

However much a consumer may want to help the homeless, the process of gathering and delivering a donation — not to mention making sure it's something that's actually needed — can sometimes feel prohibitive. Aiming to make that process easier than ever before, aptly named Easiest Give is a site that lets consumers shop online for any participating shelter and have much-needed goods delivered directly to the shelter's door.

Consumers begin by searching for shelters in their area. For each shelter that's participating — for now, they're mostly in Texas, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Oregon — they can then see what goods are currently needed there. Using Easiest Give, they can order the products of their choice off of that list, and Easiest Give will ship them directly to the shelter. Neither consumers nor shelters pay a fee for using Easiest Give. Rather, the for-profit company supports itself by buying products wholesale and then marking up its prices to the level of Target or Wal-Mart, it says.

Easiest Give is currently focused on homeless shelters in the US, and it invites those not already participating to get involved. For other parts of the world, meanwhile, how about setting up something similar...? (Related: Method's mobile laundry truck will facilitate clothing donations — Recycled parking meters collect donations for Montréal's homeless — Newspaper jacket keeps homeless people warm.)

Leave It Where It Falls.

2010-11-19T05:57:00.000-10:00

Super beautiful. From Design Crush:

Leave It Where It Falls.: "

{via ffffound}

{Modish}

Wiiiiiiipe out!

2010-11-19T05:55:00.000-10:00

From LP Cover Lover:

Wiiiiiiipe out!: "

Chrome, Smoke & Fire A Compilation of Hot Rod Music by Robt. Williams. Cover art by Robert Williams Blast Records (1981) In addition to great lost hot rod songs here’s a cool double album of picture discs!

(Photos courtesy of Bradley Loos)

Christian Faur’s Crayon Pixel Portraits.

2010-11-18T17:54:00.000-10:00

From BB-Blog:

Christian Faur’s Crayon Pixel Portraits.: "These are absolutely mindbending to me.

Flavorwire :: Christian Faur’s Amazing Crayon Pixel Portraits

The Perfect Planning Keyboard

2010-11-17T16:15:00.003-10:00

A few planners have said the key to planning is to steal everything... and then put your own spin on it. The below image will be stolen and put on the slide explaining the above point.

Storify: Tell Stories Through Social Media

2010-11-12T03:32:00.004-10:00

Storify is a great tool for planners and social media professionals. The platform allows you to tell the story of an event through organizing the social media conversations about the event. It is a lot like editing footage from several sources for one event. Check it out:

Storify demo from Burt Herman on Vimeo.

Badass Bear

2010-10-31T17:32:00.000-09:00

Photo: "

"

Impending doom

2010-10-25T17:53:00.003-09:00

And not just because Romo just went down for my fantasy team. I have a feeling this is going to make it into one of my decks sometime soon. From obsessivecompulsive:

RE:FORM School Art Show: I don't like to dream about getting paid

2010-10-18T05:33:00.002-09:00

It is all about how you define success, and below is a good rule of thumb. This piece was featured at the RE:FORM School Art Show.

Blog Action Day 2010: Fenway Park of Dying Children

2010-10-15T09:02:00.003-09:00

I believe this is my third year contributing to Blog Action Day. The global blog outreach to highlight one issue every year on one specific day by everyone in social media (not just blogs). It is a great example of bringing together small, distributed social media identities to create a unified, powerful message.

This years focus is Water. Yup, Water with a capital W. Why?

Every week, nearly 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions. That's a Fenway Park full of children dying.

There are more stats on the Blog Action Day site which are equally horrible, but it is important to not just complain and give a way to act.

For just 25 dollars, that's a meal at a restaurant where you get as much water as you want for free, you can provide drinking water to a person for a LIFETIME.

Check it out.

There is no blueprint

2010-10-07T05:04:00.005-09:00

"While many companies worry about keeping ahead of their competition, they actually have a much bigger issue – keeping pace with their customers."
-- Bryan Eisenberg

There's a huge disconnect from the agency (or social media agency) understanding how much effort this takes and brands understanding the value of it. I would say it is an education problem, but it is really having faith in agency to find actionable insights from social media monitoring. Social media ROI has no timetable; there is no blueprint.

Quote from Hidden Persuader.

The Purpose of Research - In Every Way

2010-09-28T12:42:00.001-09:00

A another great deck by Tim Stock.

The Purpose of Research (Lecture)

View more presentations from Tim Stock.

Boxing After Dark

2010-09-28T08:23:00.000-09:00

Straightforwardly directed and well produced. From BBH Labs:

Wonderful storytelling from HBO in a trailer for their boxing programming: "

Advertising Personality Overview

2010-09-28T08:10:00.002-09:00

From Welcome to Optimism:

Viral Video Friday – TippExperience

2010-09-11T08:51:00.000-09:00

Very clever. From Take Me To Your Leader!:

Viral Video Friday – TippExperience: "

A recent YouTube video ad for ink correction fluid brand Tipp-Ex allows offers a custom, interactive experience to viewers based on the product’s key functionality – allowing you to correct your original intention, or to change your mind. The video’s co-protagonist – a hunter/camper – is about to shoot a bear at his campsite, when he instead decides to use Tipp-Ex (taking it from the ad unit next to video) to correct the word ’shoots’ in the video title bar, and instead allow you to instruct what the hunter should do to the bear.

It’s basically Subservient Chicken all over again — well, a lot more basic, but same idea — but with a YouTube spin. It has more than 50 different endings: dances with, sings with, talks to, hugs, draws, fights, doesn’t shoot, is shot by, loves, kisses, fucks, pisses with, sleeps with, eats, watches TV with, swims with, plays with, shakes hand with, buys, takes a photo of, fishes with, drinks with, rides, plays football with, spanks, farts, is cooked by, breakdances with, cuts, does nothing with, high fives, smokes with, moonwalks with, washes, jumps with, tickles, shows his ass to, seduces.

Interactive brand experience offering viewers a humerous take on the product’s key functionality – allowing to correct one’s original intention, or infact to change tact entirely.

You can watch the intro video here, to go directly to the YouTube: TippExperience

Brand: Tipp-Ex

Agency: Buzzman (FR)

The Unfinished Project

2010-09-08T15:59:00.000-09:00